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Books, Madness, Books, Madness...Did I mention books?

zaterdag 30 augustus 2014

Visions of Teaoga

Title: Visions of Teaoga

Author: Jim Remsen

Genre: Middle School (Target Age 10-14) / Historical Fiction

Visions of Teaoga is a historical
novel for young readers that weaves together the adventures of an
actual American Indian figure known as Queen Esther and a fictional
middle schooler named Maddy, with a dash of time travel thrown in. By
revisiting the drama of Eastern borderland upheaval in the 1700s, the
book is appropriate as supplemental required reading in middle-school US
history classes. By adding Maddy and her modern sensibilities to the
telling, it helps us consider how we might regard the Indian-settler
legacy in our own time. Here’s a summary:

The year is 1790. Esther returns
under cover to Teaoga, the site of her burned village. It is overrun
with white settlers. Esther, honored by her people but hunted by the
settlers as a killer, has come to secretly observe a U.S.-Iroquois peace
council. While there, she stealthily provides a circle of Indian women
with her lessons of survival and mentors a troubled native girl in the
ways of leadership.

Moving ahead to the present day, our
young Maddy visits the same place, now an out-of-the-way hamlet on the
New York-Pennsylvania border, on a summer trip. Diffident yet curious,
she grows fascinated with Teaoga’s lost world and its inhabitants, chief
among them the mysterious Esther. Encounters with the locals, including
a colorful historian and two extraordinary boys, send Maddy headlong
into exploring this crossroads of civilizations. As the parallel stories
unfold, sparks begin flying across the centuries. Increasingly, Maddy’s
journey into history becomes a journey of self-discovery. By the end,
she has taken on Esther’s mantle of the “peace woman” and sets out to
heal a hurt she has caused back home.

Visions of Teaoga is a hybrid
work, part supernatural page-turner, part detailed history textbook. As
Jim says, “While I certainly want the book to be engaging and fun, my
underlying purpose is to have kids confront this lost world and
appreciate the little-taught, often surprising ways so many of the
native cultures came undone. The Teaoga locale is a perfect microcosm of
that important multicultural history, but there are similar examples
everywhere. It’s all part of our rich local history, glowing underfoot,
waiting to be explored.”

Author Bio

Jim
Remsen is an editor and author who is pursuing a lifelong interest in
history following his award-winning journalism career. At The
Philadelphia Inquirer, Jim rose through the ranks to become the
newspaper’s Religion Editor. He and his reporters won national awards
during his tenure, with the Religion Newswriters Association honoring
his Faith Life section as one of the top two religion sections among
major North American newspapers.

Visions of Teaoga is Jim’s second
published book, and comes after a long pause since his successful first
venture. In the 1980s, soon after becoming a father, Jim saw the need
for a hands-on guidebook about interfaith marriage. He and a journalist
friend spent an action-packed year researching and writing The Intermarriage Handbook: A Guide for Jews and Christians.
The book was released to wide acclaim, and nearly a quarter-century
later remains in print (with HarperCollins) as a successful bible for
mixed-faith couples.

Jim lives outside Philadelphia with his wife, Harriet. They have three adult sons.

Links

Book Excerpt

Excerpt 1 (from Chapter 19) is a climactic scene from the book’s
historic 1790 plotline. The Indian matriarch Esther and her young protégé,
Sisketung, have summoned the white (yengwe) settler girl Sarah to a final
encounter along the Teaoga ridgeline:

“Daughters, these have been dark times,” Esther continued. “Our
two peoples do not abide together well. Much of the land has been reddened with
blood and remains pained and sickened. The times have left me bitter.
Daughters, the path ahead may be even darker, even more narrow. The omens tell
me treachery and danger will hover near you like vultures.

“But Daughters, listen well. The path ahead belongs to you now, to
watch over and protect through seasons to come. People with good hearts must
step forward to guard the path and keep it open. People with good hearts who
will counsel understanding, who will listen, who will show patience and
respect. It is a hard way. It is a way that people with closed hearts and
wicked ends will try to stop. But listen well: It is the way of the Preserver!”

Reaching into her deerskin pouch, Esther retrieved two wampum
strings. They were the two remaining strands she had carried to Teaoga – the
sacred white strings of peace. She held them out in her open palm.

“Daughters, I ask you to walk together on the bright path, the
path of peace. I pray that you will keep the path smooth and wide. I pray that
you, Sisketung, will teach you, Sarah, our sacred ways of the peace women. I
pray that you will open your hearts to one another, and will show the bright
path to your people as well. These peace strings will give you strength, and
they will be clear signs to all of your good intent.”

She placed the two long strands in Sisketung’s hand, and asked her
to present one of them to Sarah. Sisketung paced back up the footpath and
motioned to Sarah to open her hand. She ceremonially placed a pure white strand
on the girl’s half-clenched palm.

Sarah stared at it without moving. “This is what you call wampum,
ain’t it. But what’s the hag saying to us? What does she want, anyway?”

When she lowered her gaze again, Sarah was gone. The girl had
turned and was trotting off toward her brother. At Sisketung’s feet lay the coiled
wampum string. Sarah had hurled it into the dirt.

Excerpt 2 (from Chapter 14) has the reader sitting quietly with
our modern protagonist, middle- schooler Maddy Winter, at an outdoor spot she’s
been told has special spiritual force. Her mind wanders over her day as a
junior camp counselor.

Light thoughts loped across Maddy’s mindscape like bunnies. She
pictured her campers, and little Lucy’s tears about the twig wigwam that Jason
had crushed with bratty delight that morning. A bead of sweat slid down her
spine beneath her tangerine tee. The dead air was oppressive. Her inner eye saw
turkey vultures rising on the heat. She imagined the coolness of the river
current. It must be a gazillion degrees back home. Her
thoughts turned to Houston and her gal-pal Melody. On a sweltering day like
today they’d probably be hanging in her air-conditioned great room. She
pictured them making fun of some TV rerun, chugging iced tea, teasing Tiara the
cat, practicing their funky dance moves as the Supersonic M&M Sisters.

I haven’t contacted Mel for a few days. Some pal I am. But it’s
okay. I’m sure she’s finding stuff to do. I’ll see her soon enough. Wow, only
five more days here. I’ve been in another world.

The free-floating thoughts were interrupted by a fly landing on
her forehead. Next it tickled her ear. Eyes still closed, she reached lazily to
brush the insect off.

She swatted – and felt her breath taken away.

Her upper body was suddenly rising, pulled forward by a gentle
force. In the pink world behind her eyelids she was aware of being stretched
and lifted in a long arc above the tall grass. It was as though she were made
of taffy.

From the wooded trough below, an elongated being reached out and
grasped her outstretched hands. A young Indian woman – no, a girl, about her
age -- ephemeral like smoke, floating gracefully, drew Maddy upwards in a
swaying dance.

Yielding to the spirit-girl’s soft smile, Maddy was bathed in
contentment. She felt herself floating overhead, filled with warmth, fingers
entwined with the spirit. Like two halves of an undulating rainbow, they
stretched together towards the treetops. She perceived campfires down below,
and women’s chant-song. The spirit-girl circled her directly above the high
grass, revolving over and over, wordlessly conveying that there, along the
ridgeline, lay a source of abiding strength for her.

Then the spirit lowered Maddy back into her sitting body, withdrew
toward the trees, and evaporated. The aura of peacefulness remained. Unwilling
to open her eyes or let go of the sweet sense of motion,

Maddy swayed in place, humming dreamily. Flies circled her head.
She was aware again of their buzzing, and of the sticky heat. But far more than
that, she felt bliss and a calm inner strength she was certain the spirit had
imparted. She smiled in gratitude. The spirit-girl had a
message for me. What was it? I sensed sadness but also encouragement. Hope, I
think, and peace, and strength. Why did she pick me?